Ed Cunard knows what I like. He knows that I like my genre television with a lot more story than plot - I want to see the human element explored. He also knows that I have a thing for brunettes with A Certain Haircut, but in lieu of providing me with such a thing, he told me to check out The 4400. I just wrapped up the first six-episode season on DVD, thanks to Netflix and I have this to say: lo, it was good.
The logline is perfect: what happens when 4400 people who have been mysteriously abducted over the last 50 years are suddenly returned, having aged not at all? Some of these people have been given strange abilities while others are just trying to get by and it’s up to the Department Of Homeland Security and a pair of agents with personal ties to the event to sort things out. Some critics, according to TV Tome, have referred to the show as a cross between Close Encounters Of The Third Kind1 and X-Men, which is a handy descriptor if not entirely accurate.
There’s a lot here that reminded me of The X-Files when The X-Files was good - the relationship between Diana Skouris and Tom Baldwin, our DHS agents, certainly seems to owe a bit to the antagonistic partnering of Mulder and Scully with Skouris, of course, being the scientist. This is because TV producers know that certain types of men (myself included) spaff all over themselves when a female character on TV is more intelligent than, say, plankton. Baldwin’s son is in a coma from one of the abductions - his nephew was taken - and his personal stake in the matter brings tension to his working relationships and a spectacular revelation in the last episode of the first season. Peter Coyote plays their boss and I, for one, am always glad to see him get work. He’s filed in the same mental category as Sam Elliot and Sam Shepard - men that aren’t flashy in their craft and play certain roles very, very well.
We also spend time with the abductees - Michael Moriarty does a splendid turn as Orson Bailey, a man abducted in the 70s who returns to a wife who has Alzheimer’s and a law firm that denies he once ran it. His brief arc in the first two-hour episode is tragic and sets the tone of the series perfectly. Carl Morrissey (abducted in the 90s) comes back to his Seattle neighborhood new and improved, with a mission of social justice on his mind in a touching second episode that wasn’t blatant in its viewer manipulation until the final scene.
There’s romance, of course - an affair between Lily Moore (abducted in the late 90s) and Richard Tyler (abducted during the Korean War) organically develops despite a hook that’s a bit forced - he dated her grandmother at a time when interracial relationships were frowned upon. Maia Rutledge (abducted in the late 40s) is a young girl whose prescient powers are as cruel a curse as a child can get as she alienates everyone around her with small predictions that are unnerving. The only weak links among these compelling individuals is the hackneyed Jordan Collier, played by Billy Campbell and Shawn Farrell, Baldwin’s nephew. Collier’s an unfortunately predictable character that I didn’t want to see go the way he ended up - his final line in season one drips with clichéd menace. Baldwin’s nephew’s romantic entanglements are particularly painful, reminding me of the more awkward bits in Smallville. However, it should be noted that without that character, the plot would fall apart - he provides a number of story functions that would have had to have been worked through multiple characters otherwise.
Brevity works distinctly in the favor with The 4400. Unlike shows such as Lost, which has apparently been suffering a tremendous amount of padding of late to judge by the whining that friends of mine have concerned themselves with, six episodes is the perfect length to establish characters, tell several good stories, move subplots forward, do a bloody terrific reveal and leave the audience wanting more. This BBC model is something that should be looked at seriously by people wanting to make shows depending on reveals and tension.
The second season of The 4400 starts in early June, so you’ve got plenty of time to catch up and see the best genre show that’s not Battlestar Galactica before it starts up again.
1Close Encounters scared the pants off me as a child and still does to this day, it should be noted. Anyone looking to mortify me would be advised to purchase a set of bright lights and a Spooky Space Sounds CD to unleash late one night while Kristin’s on the cape.
